Shattered and Mended
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: "Were your rules brought down from the mountain on tablets of stone?" A story where Tiva happens, and how Tony and Ziva's relationship effects the team dynamic.
1. Foundation

_Summary_: A story where Tiva becomes established – and has some surprisingly effects on the rest of Team Gibbs. There is a lot of Tiva (especially in this first chapter) but the story is probably equal parts Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs. I don't usually write Tiva, and that shows in Chapter 1, but the later chapters will be better.

_Author's Note_: The idea for this story came to me in a dream. I woke up and thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be great to see that happen on the show?" But since it probably won't, I did the next best thing and put it down in fanfiction form! Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 1  
Foundation  
**

_And not a day shall pass  
but we will prove our love  
to you, whom we should call  
a father to us both, a father to us all._  
– "Valjean's Confession," from _Les Miserables.  
_

On the days that their team has off, Tony and Ziva like to lounge in his bed together until late in the morning. Sometimes the two of them make love, slowly, their naked bodies tangled in the sheets. Sometimes they just lie in each other's arms and talk, or watch the soft patches of morning sunlight move across the floor, where they threw their clothes in a scattered heap the night before.

They stay in bed until they get hungry, then play rock-paper-scissors to decide who will venture out of the bedroom to the kitchen. The first few times that Tony lost, he returned with hastily-reheated take-out food leftover from dinner. But Ziva quickly got tired of pizza or fried rice for breakfast and stocked his kitchen full of bagels and cream cheese, juice and fresh fruit. Tony complained once – only once – about her health food, but then he discovered how much more delicious Ziva's mouth tastes when flavored with pineapple and kiwi, instead of pepperoni. Sometimes, after they've eaten fruit for breakfast, Tony can spend the rest of morning just kissing her, tasting the sweet juices on her lips and tongue.

Sometimes, Ziva is surprised by what topics come up when they lie in bed and talk. One morning, out of the blue, Tony tells her that he wants to learn Hebrew. He slyly asks Ziva to teach him the name of every body part. She smiles and obliges, patiently translating and repeating each word until he pronounces it right – _mot-nah-yeem_ is a hard one for him. And his lips move all over her skin, kissing each body part as he learns it.

Another morning, when they're in bed, not doing anything but being lazy, their bodies draped across each other, Tony asks her suddenly, "Do you ever just want to go up to Gibbs and tell him, _hey, to hell with you and your rule number twelve_?"

His tone is joking, but Ziva can hear the quiet, simmering anger beneath it. Rule 12 is the reason why they're so discreet, why they've kept their relationship a secret from their team – which hasn't been easy – and why they still arrive at the Navy Yard separately in the mornings, even after she's spent the night at his place.

Ziva turns in his arms, until her head is resting on his shoulder, carefully considering her response. She loves Tony, but sometimes their relationship, their family, seems so impossibly complicated. Why do she and Tony have to have the _same_ father-figure? Why does he _also_ have to be their boss? And yet, she wouldn't change their family for anything.

"Sometimes I do want to tell him... My Bubbie David had this... saying. She hated to be told that anything was impossible or could not be done. Whenever she heard something she did not like, she used to say, 'Oh yeah, where is that written? Was that brought down from the mountain on tablets of stone?'"

Tony chuckles, his mood lightening a bit. He wishes that he could've known Ziva's grandmother. She's one of the few relatives that Ziva can talk about with a smile on her face.

"Sometimes," she goes on slowly, "I have thought about saying that to Gibbs. Confronting him about his rules. Are your rules law, Gibbs? Were they brought down from the mountain on tablets of stone?"

Tony laughs for real this time. "He wouldn't have an answer to _that_. He doesn't even have them written down." Then, suddenly, his tone grows serious again, making Ziva a bit nervous. "You know you'd be my hero if you did say that to him one day," he whispers, stroking her hair with one hand. "He'd be less pissed if you said it than me."

"Maybe one day I will," Ziva whispers back, smiling at him, and the subject is dropped for the moment. But for the next few days, the thought lingers at the back of Ziva's mind whenever they spend time together. Her and Tony. Gibbs. Rule twelve.

* * *

So she's caught off-guard a few nights later. It was a long day at work, and Tony seems strangely distracted, so she goes home to her own apartment that night, rather than his. She's just climbed into bed when she hears Tony let himself in. They made copies of their keys for each other weeks ago.

Tony slips into her bedroom and calls softly, "Zee-vah? Hey, sweet cheeks, sorry to wake you up, but I got big news. It couldn't wait."

Ziva pushes herself up on her elbows and yawns, squinting at Tony's shadow in the darkness. "What?" she asks, bewildered and still half-asleep.

She feels the bed shift slightly as Tony sits down on the edge. "Zi, I've just come from Gibbs's place," he says, and she frowns. What was he doing there so late? His voice is excited and a bit breathless as he goes on, "I decided it was time to come clean, so I told him about this." He pauses dramatically – something he learned from his movies – then adds, "About us."

_That_ wakes her up, all right. Ziva feels a brief, cold rush of fear; she knew that Gibbs would eventually find out about her and Tony, one way or another, and she hasn't been looking forward to that day. But then she gropes for the lamp on her nightstand and switches it on, and Tony's bright grin banishes all her worries. His eyes are shining mischievously and his face is a bit flushed.

Ziva sits up and fumbles for words, but "You _what_?" is the most coherent response that she muster.

Tony chuckles a bit and moves closer to her on the bed. "Yeah, I don't know what came over me, but I went down to Gibbs's basement, and he was there like he always is, and I just..." He pauses for a moment, thinking. He suddenly remembers something that Ziva once said. "...I was tired of pretending, so I told Gibbs that you and I were together and we were going to stay that way, and that we would both really love it if he didn't have a problem with it, but if he did, that was just too bad. Then we talked about some stuff, and – "

Ziva has been listening in stunned silence, but now, she finally finds her voice. "You _talked_?" she interrupts, her expression somewhere between skeptic and shocked. Tony nods, completely serious, and her mouth falls open a bit. "You talked with _Gibbs_? He is a functional mute, Tony."

Tony laughs again. "Yeah, I know. But you ever notice how the boss just _knows_ stuff? Especially the stuff you think he _doesn't_ know? I've known him so long, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm pretty sure he already knew about us. He definitely suspected, at least, and – "

"But didn't he tell you..." Ziva starts, but her words flee her again. She asks, a bit hesitantly, "What about rule twelve?"

"Yeah, I expected him to give me hell over rule twelve, but he didn't. When I asked him about it, he mentioned rule fifty-one."

Ziva raises her eyebrows, surprised. She didn't know that Gibbs's rules went higher than the forties. How many rules does that man need? "What is rule fifty-one?" she asks Tony.

"Apparently it's that Gibbs makes mistakes sometimes," he answers with a shrug, sounding as surprised as she feels.

Ziva falls silent. She can't quite picture Gibbs admitting that he was wrong. It must have been one of those moments when you just had to be there. Then she turns and looks hard at the lamp on her nightstand. She once read that it was impossible to turn lights on or off in dreams. But she turned _this_ one on, so...

"It's not a dream, Zi," Tony says with a smile, reading her perfectly. And she slowly smiles back at him, as the shock and disbelief and even fear inside her fade away, replaced by relief and pure joy. Gibbs knows about them, and he's okay with it, more or less. He isn't going to make one of them leave the team. They don't have to hide anymore.

She grabs Tony by his shirt, pulls him down on top of her, and kisses his waiting mouth.

"My hero," she grins.

* * *

So Tony is caught off-guard when he sees things slowly start to unravel, not long after he comes clean to Gibbs about him and Ziva. It isn't the two of them who start falling apart; maybe Tony would be better prepared if it was. But instead, and perhaps even worse, he sees a chasm widening between Ziva and Gibbs.


	2. Shattered

Thanks for all the reviews and story-alerts, y'all – they mean so much! It seems many of you are nervous about what happens next, so I'll let you in on a little secret. This story is titled "Shattered and Mended" for a reason. I hope that reassures you without giving anything away! Thanks again for all your support! :)

* * *

**Chapter 2  
Shattered**

_You were once my one companion.  
You were all that mattered.  
You were once a friend and father.  
Then my world was shattered._  
– "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again," from _The Phantom of the Opera_.

Tony soon realizes how naive he was to have believed that things on the job would go on just like they always had. Yes, it's a huge relief that Gibbs knows about their relationship and is okay with it. It's great that they don't have to hide it anymore, but they're not obvious about it, either. After all, Tony had promised Gibbs – in his basement, in not so many words – that he and Ziva would keep it in the bedroom and out of the bullpen. It wouldn't impact their work, so there was no reason for anything at work to change.

Oh yeah, he was naive, all right.

Tony first notices the shift at a crime scene one morning, when Ziva finds a stray bullet at the perimeter of a parking lot where there was a drive-by shooting. She points it out to him, and after they've bagged, tagged, and photographed it, she looks across the parking lot to where Gibbs is questioning witnesses. For a moment, she just stares at him, frowning, as if puzzled by the NCIS logo on the back of his jacket.

"You should show it to Gibbs," she tells Tony quietly, and she steps away to survey the rest of the perimeter.

Tony has waved Gibbs over and pointed the bullet out to him before it occurs to him to wonder why Ziva didn't show it to him herself.

That afternoon, she gives a report on a suspect from her desk, rather than joining Gibbs and Tony in front of the monitor like usual. Gibbs frowns at her for a second, puzzled, but he doesn't say anything about it, and neither does Tony.

But from then on, Ziva does little things like that on a daily basis. They drive to a crime scene, and she swaps seats in their van with McGee, putting herself further from Gibbs. Tony once sees her take the long way into the bullpen, going around by the opposite wall, to avoid walking past Gibbs.

Her actions are each just a bit off, but when added together, something is very wrong. Even McGee notices it. Ziva never says anything disrespectful to Gibbs – she barely says anything to him at all – but it's obvious that she's trying to have as little do to with him as possible. As if he hasn't been more of a father to her than Eli ever was. As if he isn't the only man that she trusts even more than Tony.

Tony racks his brain, but for the life of him, he can't imagine what could've happened to drive Ziva away from Gibbs like this. But it must have something to do with their being together. There's no such thing as a coincidence, and Ziva starting shifting away from Gibbs not long after Tony came clean to their boss about them.

"DiNozzo, if you break her heart," he had warned that night in his basement, his slow voice emphasizing each word, "I will castrate you – with a dull, rusty knife."

"And what if _she_ breaks _my_ heart?" Tony had asked indignantly, but Gibbs just shrugged and went on sanding.

Gibbs wouldn't have threatened him like that if he didn't care about her. Ziva has to know that. She's not his favorite – Abby still holds that title – but she's one of his kids, the only one to earn her own private nickname. Sure, he calls Abby _Abs_ sometimes, but they all do that. No one calls Ziva _Ziver_ except Gibbs.

Tony doesn't wait long to ask her about it. One morning, Ziva stands far back from him and Gibbs as they look over a suspect's phone records. Later in the day – while Gibbs is upstairs in the conference room, talking to the victim's wife, and McGee is downstairs in Abby's lab – it happens to be just Tony and Ziva in the bullpen. He steps closer to her desk, where she's typing up a report.

"Zi... did something happen?" he asks in a low voice. Her dark eyes look over at him and blink in confusion. He adds, "Between you and Gibbs. Why are you avoiding him?"

Her gaze drops to the floor, ashamed, and Tony sees her shoulders stiffen in a way that worries him. Ziva usually gets uncomfortable like this when they're talking about Eli – not Gibbs. "I am not... _trying_ to avoid him," she says haltingly, still not looking at Tony. "I just... I cannot..."

That's when the elevator dings and Gibbs steps off, coffee cup in hand, as always. Ziva's head jerks up, and her eyes widen when she sees that their boss is headed straight for them. She looks slightly panicked, and Tony could swear that the golden tone of her skin suddenly seems pale.

"Ziva, you – " Tony starts to ask, but she doesn't even bother coming up with an excuse to leave this time. She just gets up from her desk and quickly walks away.

Her departure is so sudden that Tony doesn't have time to ask her the last, most important, question. The words hang unsaid on his lips as he watches her go, fighting the urge to run after her and make her talk.

_"You know Gibbs loves you, right?"_

Then the strong smell of coffee announces Gibbs's presence beside him, and Tony turns to look at his boss. His blue eyes are narrowed – In confusion? Or anger? Tony can't quite tell – as he watches Ziva's retreating back. She disappears into the women's restroom, where neither of them can follow. With a frustrated sigh, Gibbs turns away, crushes the coffee cup in his hand, and hurls it in the trash.

Tony feels a cold fear run through him. That cup still had coffee in it. In all the years that Tony's known Gibbs, he's never seen the man throw away coffee.

He feels like he's watching something very precious start to shatter. Whatever's going on between Gibbs and Ziva is so serious that Ziva doesn't want to tell him about it, and Gibbs is throwing away coffee over it. Tony is half-tempted to walk over to his boss right now, smack the back of his head, and yell, "Hey, what the hell was that about? Ziva and I are finally happy together, and now _this_?" He might actually do it, too, if that's what it takes to get to the bottom of this. Tony is sure that he's going to find out the truth sooner or later – he's a detective, after all – but another part of him whispers that maybe he doesn't want to know.

For the rest of the day, dark scenarios chase each other around the back of his mind – of the bond between Gibbs and Ziva somehow being blown all to hell, of Tony being forced to choose between them, of their little family torn apart.


	3. Mended

Okay, I'm giving y'all fair warning. Some of you are going to hate this chapter. And some of you are going to love it. That's all I can say without giving everything away (and I think I've already said too much). In retrospect, this chapter does seem a tad bit... silly to me, but again, this whole story came to me in a dream, and I have no control over my subconscious.

* * *

**Chapter 3  
****Mended**

_How does he know?_  
_What spirit comes to move my life?_  
_There is another way to go._  
_Another story must begin..._  
- "Valjean's Soliloquy," from _Les Miserables_.

Ziva stands close to the mirror in the quiet darkness of observation, watching Tony grill a suspect that the two of them just brought in. Tony had wanted her to come into interrogation with her, but... she just didn't feel up to it. Staying away from Gibbs has been harder than she thought, and she leans her head against the glass wearily. She won't be able to keep this up much longer.

In interrogation, Tony paces back and forth behind the suspect, trying to get under his skin. He's taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Damn, he looks good in those shirt sleeves. Just earlier today, Tony had asked her what was wrong between her and Gibbs, and Ziva feels horrible for still not telling him the real reason why she's avoiding their boss. But she can't tell Tony, not yet, not when she still can't face it herself.

She doesn't know what to do, except maybe –

But her thought is interrupted when the door to observation opens, and Gibbs himself steps inside. Ziva starts a bit, surprised, but before she can do anything, Gibbs holds up both hands, as if in surrender.

"Hey, it's just me," he says softly, and Ziva's eyes narrow suspiciously. What does he mean by _that_?

But Gibbs doesn't explain himself. Without a word, he steps closer, until he's standing right next to her, and watches Tony in interrogation. He doesn't look at her, but having him so close is enough to make Ziva's stomach churn from what she hopes is nerves. Her eyes dart towards the door, but Gibbs must know, somehow, that she's planning to make a break for it because before she can move, he jerks his head towards Tony and asks her the last thing that she wanted or expected to hear.

"So... does he know, Ziver?"

It's a simple question, but it makes Ziva's world rock on its hinges for the second time since that awful day. She wants more than ever to turn and run now, but she feels frozen to the spot. She can't answer Gibbs - she can barely even breathe - so she just stiffens and keeps staring hard at Tony on the other side of the glass, where he's still interrogating their murder suspect. "Why don't you tell me what _really_ happened?" he demands.

When she doesn't answer, Gibbs sighs and decides to spell it out for her. He asks again, gently, "Does he know why the smell of coffee makes you nauseous now? That's why you've been avoiding me, isn't it?"

Perhaps she shouldn't be surprised. Perhaps she should be used to it by now, but still, Ziva feels a vague curiosity and wonders how he does it. In the silence, she hears again Tony's words from that night when he came to her apartment from Gibbs's house and woke her up to tell her that their boss already knew about them. _"Have you ever notices how the boss just _knows_ stuff? Especially the stuff you think he _doesn't_ know?" _

It feels like a very long time before she's able to swallow and shake her head no. And then, of their own accord, the words are rushing out of her mouth and Ziva is powerless to stop them. She's been wanting to say this to someone ever since that awful day when she took the home pregnancy test - careful to destroy the evidence afterwards, so that Tony wouldn't find it.

"Tony does not know. I have not told him yet. I just... I do not know how to tell him." She pauses, still staring straight ahead, sure that she'll lose her nerve and clam up if she looks at Gibbs. But Gibbs is looking at her, his head titled to one side. Ziva is usually so confident, so sure of herself. He almost never sees her uncertain like this. She goes on, her voice scared and halting, "We were not planning... We never talked about... Tony..."

But Ziva stops abruptly and blushes a bit, embarrassed at how close she came to blurting out that Tony always wears a condom. She can't possibly say that to _Gibbs_. Her cheeks grow hot, and she doesn't even care if he notices. She doesn't have the words to tell Gibbs how unplanned this was, or how utterly unprepared she feels. She's a trained assassin. She's an expert in taking life, not creating it. She had never imagined herself with a child, and now she has one, hers and Tony's, slowly growing to life inside her.

"I have not told him yet," she says again, but her voice is shaking, then her shoulders, and she blames the damn hormones when her vision blurs with tears. She isn't aware of Gibbs pulling her in and hugging her, but the next thing she knows, his strong arms are around her and her head is on his shoulder. She takes a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm herself, and notices that Gibbs's polo smells like pine. He sprayed himself with air freshener before he came in, to get the coffee smell off his clothes. For some reason, that makes her want to cry, too.

"You're scared," Gibbs says quietly. It isn't a question, but he feels Ziva nod against his shoulder, hesitantly, as if ashamed to admit this. "Ziver, listen to me. Every parent feels scared - every one." He doesn't add, _I was scared too_, but she hears it anyway and immediately, she feels better. Gibbs, one of the strongest people she knows, was also intimated by becoming a parent. It isn't just her. Ever since that awful day, she had been wondering what was wrong with her. Surely every other woman in the world was thrilled by learning that they carried life inside them, so why wasn't she?

"Every parent feels like they can't do it," he goes on, and he feels Ziva lean against him, her tense body slowly relaxing. "But you can do this, okay? You and DiNozzo can do this." Gibbs tightens his arms around her, trusting her to know that he isn't just saying this to reassure her. He _believes_ it. He never would've given Tony his blessing, that night in his basement, if he didn't believe that the two of them could stay strong through whatever life hurled at them. He might not have seen this curve ball coming - _they_ certainly didn't - but he knew that they could do it. They've good partners for years, working together, always having each other's backs. They can be good parents too.

Ziva remains silent, her eyes big in the dim room, thinking. _You and DiNozzo can do this._ She realizes that she's been doing this all wrong. She's been going through it alone, ever since that awful day, but she isn't alone. She has Tony, and they have an entire team of people behind them - including the man who has his arms around her right now. She's missed saying more than a few words to Gibbs at a time. She never realized how often he drinks coffee, or how the smell of it clings to his clothes, until one morning when just the sight of coffee was almost enough to turn her stomach. That night, while Tony slept, she turned on her laptop and read about strong aversion to certain odors during the first trimester - and then she immediately cleared her browser history, so he wouldn't find out. When she couldn't find the courage to tell him why the smell made her sick, she started keeping her distance from Gibbs; she didn't want to risk catching a whiff of coffee and throwing up in the bullpen - or even worse, at a crime scene. Looking back now, Ziva realizes what a stupid idea it was. Of course she wouldn't be able to avoid Gibbs for long. Of course everyone would notice. She's lucky that only Gibbs figured it out.

"It's okay to be scared, Ziver," he says, his voice soft but firm. He pauses for a moment to let the words sink in. _It's okay to be scared_ is probably the exact opposite of what Eli taught her. "DiNozzo is gonna be scared too, but you two can do this. You just need to tell him."

"I know," she whispers, the words slightly muffled against his shoulder. She still sounds scared, but her voice isn't shaking anymore.

Gibbs smiles and brings one hand up to stroke her hair. "Right now he thinks you're avoiding me because I'm pissed at you for something."

"I know," Ziva says with a tiny chuckle. As the sound leaves her lips, she realizes that it's the first time she's laughed since that awful day. She goes on, with new, steady resolve in her voice, "I am going to tell him, Gibbs. But you cannot tell him about... this. I do not want him to know you knew before he did."

"Deal," Gibbs agrees easily. He can understand that. Tony did have a right to know first. He's the father, after all; Gibbs is the grandfather.

"Thank you, Gibbs," Ziva whispers after a pause, and then, before she can lose her nerve, she quickly stands on tiptoe and kisses his cheek. Gibbs smiles and holds her a little longer, not quite ready for this moment to end. It isn't lost on him that he isn't just holding Ziva right now; he's holding her and Tony's baby, too. And suddenly, all the memories that seemed so far away feel so close... like that evening when he came home with Chinese take-out, which Shannon had always liked, and the smell of it sent her running from the room.

Gibbs is just releasing Ziva from his embrace when the door opens, and Tony steps in. They had both forgotten that he's been in interrogation with their murder suspect this whole time. Tony stops short, staring, when he sees the two of them together. His gaze darts back and forth between them, registering Ziva's bright, wet eyes and shaky grin, and Gibbs's arms still half-around her. His face shows confusion, then relief - huge relief that whatever was going on between them, they've obviously patched it up.

He moves closer to them, a jaunty spring in his step, and brags, "Well, got a confession out of him, Boss. Case solved." He doesn't ask about what just happened, but Ziva has already made up her mind to tell him tonight.

**FIN**

* * *

I know some of you would probably like to see this story continue, but this is as far as my muse took me. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I enjoyed reading all of your wonderful reviews! And whether you're disappointed or thrilled by this ending, feel free to let me know!

V


End file.
